Radio communications devices are increasingly being used to communicate through and process RF signals within multiple RF bands. An example of multiple RF band devices is a device that is able to communicate in one of several cellular telephone bands, such as the 800 MHz band and the 1.9 GHz Cellular telephone band, while receiving Global Positioning System (GPS) signals in the region of 1.575 GHz. It is often desirable, especially in small and/or portable devices, to minimize the number of antennas that are used on the device, and using a single antenna to cover multiple bands generally provides savings in size and manufacturing cost.
One antenna design used in cellular telephones that operate within two RF bands is a Planar Inverted “F” Antenna (PIFA). A PIFA is able to efficiently operate in two cellular bands, such as the 800 MHz and 1.9 GHz RF bands. In cellular phone devices that operate in these two bands, however, a separate antenna is generally used to receive GPS signals in the region of 1.575 GHz. This increases the size, cost and complexity of cellular phones that operate in these two cellular bands and that are required to receive GPS signals.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.